A Complete Design Doc for Nim

Overview

Nim is a two-player game. There are multiple (how many?) piles of matchsticks (how high?). Each player takes a turn removing some number of matchsticks from one of the piles. The player who removes the last matchstick wins the game.

State

• Piles of matchsticks; represented as an int[], with each element being the number of matchsticks in that pile
• The total number of piles; represented as an int
• The maximum and minimum number of matchsticks in each pile; each represented by an int
• The current player; represented by an int
• We’ll store all of this in a Nim class

Functions

• Nim constructor: To set up a new game board
• displayBoard: To display the current board
• isGameOver: To determine whether the game is done
• isValidMove: To determine whether a player’s move is valid
• takeATurn: Some way of prompting user to take a turn

Procedure

The game operates as follows.

• Set up the game.
  • Initialize the board randomly.
  • Choose the starting player.
• Start the game.
  • displayBoard [A]
  • Ask the current player to takeATurn [B]:
    • Prompt player to enter which pile and amount to remove
    • Determine if the entered information isValidMove
    • If valid, update board using the appropriate set method. If not, go to [B]
    • Flip the player using the appropriate set method.
  • isGameOver? If not, go to [A]
• Flip the player one more time
• Tell the current player that they won